The Man who Bombed Manchester Arena

 

Late on the night of 22 May 2017, an explosion rocked England’s Manchester Arena after a performance by the American pop star Ariana Grande. At least 22 people were dead, including children, and nearly 60 people were injured. 

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack, saying that “explosive devices were detonated in the shameless concert arena resulting in 30 Crusaders being killed and 70 other being wounded.” The declaration did not identify the “soldier”who carried out the bombing.

Police said they believe an “improvised explosive device” was set off by 22-year-old Salman Ramadan Abedi, who died at the scene.

Abedi, the second youngest of four children was born and raised in Manchester in 1994 and grew up in a Muslim household.

His parents, mother Samia Tabbal and father Ramadan Abedi, a security officer, are Libyan-born refugees who fled to the UK to escape Qaddafi. It is thought they returned in 2011 following Qaddafi's overthrow.

Abedi is thought to have an older brother Ismail Abedi, who was born in Westminster in 1993, a younger brother Hashim Abedi, and a sister Jomana, whose Facebook profile suggests she is from Tripoli and lives in Manchester.

Abedi is believed to have attended the Manchester Islamic Centre, also known as the Didsbury Mosque.

Abedi went to Burnage Academy for Boys between 2009 and 2011, and then on to Salford University in 2014 where he studied business management before dropping out

He was registered as living at the Abedi family home Elsmore Road, south Manchester. A large Libya flag hung out his window.

Neighbours recalled an abrasive, tall, skinny young man who was little known in the neighbourhood, and often seen in traditional Islamic clothing.

A couple of months ago Salman was seen chanting the Islamic prayer really loudly in the street.

He said, ‘There is only one God and the prophet Mohammed is his messenger’.

All of a sudden he had travelled to Libya and then most likely to Syria, became radicalised and decided to commit this attack.

Abedi's trips to Libya are now subject to scrutiny including links to jihadists.

A group of Gaddafi dissidents, who were members of the outlawed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, lived within close proximity to Abedi in Whalley Range.

Among them was Abd al-Baset Azzouz, who left Britain to run a terrorist network in Libya overseen by Ayman al-Zawahiri who was Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of al-Qaeda.

Azzouz, an expert bomb-maker, was accused of running an al-Qaeda network in eastern Libya. The Telegraph reported in 2014 that Azzouz had 200 to 300 militants under his control and was an expert in bomb-making.

Speaking for the first time about his son's death, Abedi's father said: "We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us."

Abedi's sister, Jomana, suggested he carried out the attack for revenge on US air strikes in Syria.

Abedi was known to British intelligence, but was seen as being on the edges of the extremist movement, rather than a central player.

So viewers, be aware about who’s around you because a sleeper cell is just a common man. 

May the souls of dead, rest in peace. 

Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 Hijack: Was it a Pakistan’s Intelligence agency’s Plot?

 

A Brief History

 

On 24 Dec 1999, the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 was hijacked by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terrorist group around 1730 IST during its transit from Katmandu to Delhi. The aircraft carried 176 passengers with 15 crew members. Chief Flight Attendant Anil Sharma reported that a masked Gunman threatened Capt Devi Sharan to fly west or that he would blow the plane with a bomb. The hijackers wanted to take the aircraft to Lahore, Pakistan. However, since there was insufficient fuel Capt Sharan insisted them to land at Amritsar, India. The airport authorities at Amritsar tried to immobilize the plane by speeding a fuel tanker towards the runway. It aroused suspicion among the hijackers when Air traffic controller asked the pilot to slow down and the tanker stopped suddenly. This forced them to take off immediately (within 25 minutes of landing) and then they flew to Lahore, Pakistan.

The airport authorities at Lahore initially denied landing. In fact all lightings were turned off and a complete blackout was maintained in the Pakistani Air Space. Capt Sharan with his visual instincts tried landing on a well-lit road assuming to be runway but later aborted it. Finally Lahore airport authorities had no option but allow it to land. Also, the aircraft reportedly developed a mechanical defect and the flight engineer came out with one of the hijackers to fix the problem. Immediately after the flight was refueled, it left Lahore.

IC 814 then landed at Al Minhad military base 12 miles north-west of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates at 0135 IST after Dubai international Airport also refused it permission to land. The purported reason for landing at the air base was refueling. Also, they offered to disembark women and kids provided they fulfill the demands for food and water. Dubai was the only option left because Kabul and Kandahar had no night landing facilities and that Omani authorities refused it to land at Muscat. Indian Government wanted to conduct a Commando raid operation at Dubai but it was refused by UAE Government. 26 passengers including the young man who was stabbed by hijackers were disembarked before the flight took off to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Taliban interfered in order to gain an international recognition. It played the role of a mediator between Indian Government and the hijackers. In fact Taliban placed armed men and Anti Air rockets all around the aircraft claiming it as an attempt to dissuade the hijackers. But its intention was to prevent any Indian military operation against the hijackers. Based on the information given by passengers released at Dubai, it was found that there were five in number hijackers among whom one carried a pistol and others carried a knife. They also possessed hand grenades. They used nicknames namely Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar. Until Taliban mediated, the hijackers did not open up their demands. Though the hijackers wanted to directly negotiate with UN, it didn’t come up well. 

It was the evening of 26 December when a team of delegates from Indian Government reached Kandahar to begin talks with hijackers for the first time. The Taliban government charged $ 25,000 for permitting the Indian Airlines plane carrying negotiators and medics to land in Kandahar. It is to be noted that thirteen hours after the hijack, Osama bin Laden issued a statement ‘The United States of America, Russia and India are the greatest enemies of Islam’. Finally their demands were out. They wanted Maulana Masood Azhar (Chief of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen), body of slain terrorist Sajjad Afghani and 35 other militants to be released from prison and a sum of $200 million. After six days of negotiations, the Indian Government came to an agreement with hijackers where all the hostages were released in exchange for three militants Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Syed Sheikh. 

The released hostages alleged that the hijackers were provided more weapons at Kandahar and that they were in constant communication with someone through a wireless set who gave them instructions. Taliban regime gave 10 hours for hijackers to move out of Afghanistan who ran away with Taliban hostages for their safety. Sources reveal that they headed for Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. It was later found that the aircraft carried RDX and so the hijackers were in a mindset to blow the plane if their demands were not met.

  

The plot

Let us see how the terrorist operation was meticulously planned. The main motive of this hijack was - freedom for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen chief Maulana Masood Azhar who was arrested in February 1994 for his terrorist activities. In July 1998, Maulana's brother-in-law Yusuf Azhar approached Abdul Latif (a Gujarat based close associate of Dawood Ibrahim) to free Masood Azhar. In June 1999, a jailbreak was attempted but failed.

In September 1999, five hijackers namely Ibrahim Athar (Chief), Sunny Ahmed Qazi (Burger), Shahid Sayeed Akhtar (Doctor), Zahoor Ibhrahim Mistri (Bhola) and Shakir (Shankar) gathered at a rented flat in Dhaka along with Abdul Latif and Abdul Rauf (younger brother of Masood Azhar). Shahid Sayeed Akhtar and Zahoor Ibhrahim Mistri were pilots trained in an Aviation academy at Melbourn. Ibrahim Athar, brother of Maulana Masood Azhar had been working on this operation in Kathmandu and found out the security lapse at Tribhuvan International Airport. Indian passengers needed only an identity card to clear the security checks. It was decided that if Indian Government denied their demands the plane would be blown off. Latif returned India to prepare the fake documents for the hijackers and also booked tickets for them. He took the principal hijacker Ibrahim Athar to Cuttack where an Al-Qaeda Indian sub-continent (AQIS) operative Mohammed Abdur Rehman (arrested on 16 December 2015) who was running a Madrassa there provided safe shelter at a secret location. With the help of Dilip Kumar Bhujel,  Shahid Sayeed Akhtar and Yusuf Nepali arranged for three grenades and three revolvers from Kalimpong. Abdul Rauf funded this plan.

On 13 December, the conspirators met at Kathmandu Zoo to confirm the sequence of plan of action. As decided, Athar entered the airport with hand grenades and pistol. As soon as he passed the security checks (helped by an ISI agent who works at Pakistan Embassy), he signaled Sunny Ahmed Qazi (Burger) and Shakir (Shankar). All three had executive class tickets. Sunny Ahmed Qazi and Shahid Sayeed Akhtar boarded the flight with business class tickets. At noon on 24 December, Latif who was in Mumbai at that time got a call from Athar that he had passed the security checks and that others were heading to airport. At 1654 IST, Varanasi Air traffic controller received a message that IC 814 has been hijacked. The hijackers had support of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence, a Pakistan based Intelligence agency) agents at various stages. They also got sophisticated weapons and communication equipments at Lahore and Kandahar airport after the plane was hijacked.

 

Indian Intelligence Failed

 

The United States' Central Intelligence Agency had more than a month ago alerted Indian authorities of plans by Islamic/Kashmiri militants to carry out some sensational action like hijacking. Likewise, the Nepalese minister of Civil Aviation had, it appears, got an inkling a month ago of a hijacking plan. Five ISI agents who were involved in this conspiracy were arrested in Mumbai. This breakthrough came when America's Central Intelligence Agency intercepted a message from the hijackers in Kandahar to one Abdul Latif in Bombay, asserting that if their demands were not met they would blow up the plane.

Apart from all these, a RAW Agent (Research and Analysis Wing, an Indian Intelligence Agency), SBS Tomar who was deployed in Nepal on a diplomatic mission was one among the hostages on the plane. Though his identity was not compromised during the hijack, he never had any intelligence regarding this.

  

The Aftermath

According to the reports of ‘Daily Times’, Abu Jandal, a former guard of Osama bin Laden, aired a one and a half hour documentary on Al-Jazeera Television in which he stated "After two or three days, bin Laden invited Azhar to a lavish party, thrown in his honour, where I was introduced to him. I was astonished to discover that Azhar and Bin Laden already knew each other". He further said that on the day the Indian Airlines jet was hijacked and force-landed at Kandahar, he was asked to keep the heat-seeking Stinger missiles ready.

Harkat-ul-Ansar is part of the pan-Islamic militant organisations that have active support from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence and is believed to enjoy the trust of the Taliban and Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden. Kandahar was a chosen one for this very reason that Al-Qaeda’s operational base was close to it and they could get arms support.

A top-secret report prepared by the Research and Analysis Wing has indicated that people sympathetic to the hijackers' cause may get them refuge in Sudan, Nigeria or Saudi Arabia before they are provided asylum in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Disappearance of MH370 : Was it China's hunter & US' killer mission?

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, an international passenger flight disappeared on 08 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. The aircraft made its last voice contact less than one hour after the flight took off, after which it deviated westward from its planned flight path (as reported by Malaysian radar). There were 12 malaysian crew members and 227 passengers. Now let's deviate from this topic and later converge with various dimensions that interlinked this subject.

US Drone Papers

The US military operates more than 9000 drones at different parts of the world. They use it for surveillance, attacking ground targets and mostly aimed at assassinating high profile individuals. The Chinese have been longing to steal this valuable drone technology and breach the US security network.

What happened to Maersk Alabama?

Two American ex-Navy seals, Jeffrey Reynolds & Mark Kennedy, worked for Maritime security company and were assigned to guard the ship Maersk Alabama. In February 2014, both men were reported dead and that it had been as a result of intake of a combination of heroin and alcohol. But according to their family they were never known to take hard drugs like heroin.

The obvious question is, "Were these men killed to steal any valuable or sensitive information or cargo onboard the ship?" Due to Obama's new War program against terrorism, drone activity has been increased in Seychelles. Seychelles being a hub, it is suspected that the cargo onboard Maersk Alabama contained sensitive military hardware of drones that were supposed to be destined for US bases in Africa.

The theory goes like this. The Chinese intelligence knew about sensitive command & control units being shipped through Alabama. As they were eagerly waiting to exploit such a technology, they paid the Somalian pirates to get onboard and steal this valuable technology.

A security report explains that Chinese hackers managed to hack into US shipping company and were able to track what military cargo was being shipped on which US vessel and that's how Alabama was targeted.

In an article by New York times, it was stated that the pirates used two sex workers to entice Kennedy and Reynolds, who were getting drunk and gambling at casino that evening. They were killed when they were back to ship for a private party. Both were injected a lethal dose of heroin leaving syringes in their hands. Once they were incapacitated, the women let other pirates onto the ship who cut open the containers of mobile drone control cargo using bolt cutters. Once the hardware was located they unloaded it onto a truck and made off with the cargo. These cargo was later transported to Malaysia at the end of February 2014, when Chinese Defence Intelligence Agents purchased it and transported to Chinese embassy at Kuala Lumpur. Free scale Industries is a renowned US based firm that manufactures high powered microchips for military radars and other electronic warfare equipment. A team of 20 scientists (12 from Malaysia and 8 from China) from Free scale Semiconductors, who were working for Chinese Defence Intelligence were waiting for the arrival of US drones at Chinese embassy to back engineer the drone technology. If Chinese were able to hack onto Global Drone Network, they would have been able to control US drones themselves which will be a greater threat to US national security. Final plan was to transport the hardware to Beijing through a commercial carrier to avoid suspicion. That was how MH370 was chosen.

On the discovery of happenings behind the death of Reynolds and Kennedy, CIA and US military would not stop to recapture the stolen cargo. The Chinese would want to understand the protocols, encryption methods, command codes that give them ability to control and hack into drones. By this they can continuously track the US surveillance activity.

The Plot

Malaysian Airlines had reported about the mystery cargo that contained some radio equipment. It is now well clear that primary objective of CIA was that the drone technology should not make it to Beijing at any cost. There were 3 options with them. The first one being that they would blow up the flight in air. But this could create a risk of war with China. The second one would be to conduct an assault mission to recover cargo before it was loaded on flight. But it will be a dangerous option without special forces in a foreign country. The third one would be to hijack the flight, recover the cargo and ditch it in sea. The advantage is that it would be a secret mission and at the same time 20 scientists who knew information about these drones can also be killed. But how to hijack the flight without any suspicion? In order to succeed this mission a clone aircraft was chosen that would help the world believe that MH370 is airborne until they would accomplish the mission. With the help of Israeli Intelligence, CIA obtained decoy plane N105GT which was a perfect match to MH370. This plane was modified with a Boeing Uninterruptible Auto Pilot (BUAP) i.e. in layman terms, this aircraft can be controlled from ground station without the presence of pilot onboard. It's AES was reprogrammed to emit that of MH370.

The Mysterious Operation

The possible theory of hijack operation would be that a couple of CIA agents would have already boarded the flight as maintenance employees and hidden themselves underneath. Once the flight took off, with the help of hardware override device, they could have reprogrammed Flight Management Computers thereby taking over pilot controls. The sequence of events that could have happened is switching off of AES, disabling transponders and communication systems and then reprogrammed with a new flight path. Once this was accomplished, the decoy would have disguised the role of MH370. At some point of time, the flight was de-pressurised and it resulted in hypoxia, creating a asphyxiation to all passengers and crew onboard. The hijackers obviously were equipped with oxygen mask and made the plane fly back towards Thimarafushi airport in Maldives. The cargo and black boxes were recovered and taken to Diego Garcia airbase through a boat. It is to be noted that Diego Garcia is equipped with SPS 049 microwave radar and OTH radar that has a range of 3000km. But it was not able to detect even a single trace of the plane. Also it stated that US military base at Diego Garcia was on a lockdown on 08 March 2014 with not a single scheduled flight in or out of the base for 72 hours.

To accomplish a short take off, MH370 was unloaded as much possible to make it light weight. The plane was set in autopilot mode and controlled ditching was carried out not far from point of last radar contact. The pilot was later recovered by boat. Like every criminal leaves back an evidence, the INMARSAT data of British shows that there was no user data transmitted after a certain period as the decoy was modified not to transmit any user data because it could give away its position. The CIA soon realised this recording of Burst Timing and frequency offsets. In order to avoid the information going public, the satellite controller was killed a week after the disappearance of MH370 saying that he suffered a heart attack. The decoy was ditched off Sumatra. 

Conclusion

If at all we get any evidence of two planes crashed, this is a simple accident. Also it is difficult to believe that China spends €15.3 and all its naval resources for search operations of few passengers who lost their life in this tragic incident. Though the recovery of stolen cargo remains hidden, it is sure that 20 scientists from Free scale Semiconductors who back engineered the drone hardware are no more.